What Should Be Wild

Julia Fine is a talent to watch! Her lyricism and imagination alone are worth reading this feminist fairy tale. The first page sucked me right into the story and I read the entire book in one day. Ms. Fine weaves in old wives' tales with the stories of some of Maisie's female ancestors, all of whom disappears mysteriously. The backstories of each child or woman are excellent and I wouldn't have minded a little more expansion of each character.

Until Maisie embarks on a search for her father with two strangers, the book had me in its palms. While there is no question Maisie might make foolish decisions without her father's guidance, especially when a handsome and charming man appears on the scene, the book didn't capture a sense of wonder and surprise I would have expected from a 16-year old girl who has only interacted with a handful of people due to her magical and terrifying abilities. I also found it odd that Maisie so quickly abandoned her dog, Marlowe, the only creature she'd been able to touch and not kill, to go on a hunt for her father.

The final quarter of the book went downhill for me. The ending seemed to come too quickly and the ending was rather anticlimactic. I am curious where the surviving ancestors went once the alternate forest closed after Maisie absorbed her alter ego. Did they disappear? It isn't the lack of tied up plot points that bothered me-it's that I think more time could have been taken with the ending to arrive at the level of craft in the first half.

All in all, an interesting book!